THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1912. THE WIDOW'S MITE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10549, 3 February 1912, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1912. THE WIDOW'S MITE.

As an illustration - of the reckless bungling which results from the rushing through Parliament of votecatching legislation/ the Widows' Pensions' Act stands out in bold relief. It is so full of glaring anomalies and inconsistencies that it would take a Philadelphia lawyer to interpret its nieaamg. Let us give one fxr two simple instances. The Act provides that no widow shall be entitled to a pension whose child, or jfliildren, may have been born outside the Dominion. To show liow utterly ridiculous is thi sprovision, we need mention only one case whidh has come under our observation. A woman wlio was born and married 'n New Zealand weut on a visit to the Old Country." Whilst absent from the Dominion her husband died, and she became a mother. She ftas ever sinoe ; resided in New Zealand, and has! brought up her'child a-s best she! could. One would think that, if anybody was entitled to the pension, this woman was. But no. Her child happened to be born outside Ithe Dominion, and she has no claim, upon the fund. Then there .is the quesHon of personal earnings. The Act says that a widow may draw a pension so long as her total earnings, together with the pension, do not exceed £IOO per year. Thus we find a woman with one child, who is in good health, earning £BB a year at ofly.cp-oleaning, etc. That woman is entitled to £l2 per year pension.

Another woman with one child is , frail in health, and unable to work. She may be drawing £42 per year . from the Charitable Aid Board. This woman, is entitled to no pension, because she is* in receipt of an income of over £3O per year, which is not regarded as personal "earnings." Surely such a case as this is worse than anomalous. Again, we find a woman with one child earning £BB a year, and drawing £l2". Under this , precious piece of legislation another widow with a family of three or more children would, if she were earning £B3, be entitled to precisely the same pension as the widow with one child.' Is this what the Legislature calls "humanitarian" legislation? If I the Act were carefully dissected, .'t would be found to be full of anomalies such as those given above. The wonder is that the revising Chamber, if it were worthy of the name, did not detect these absurdities. But is it a revising Chamber? Has it'done anything in recent years to jusibify its existence as a brake upon reckless legislation? It is sincerely to be hoped that the mandate- given at the recent polls will result iu the reform l of our legislative methods, and that we shall have no more of this humanitarian humbug, designed to catch the votes of the unsophisticated. What we want in this country is sane legislation—legislation which has been devised to meet the pressing requirements of the State, and which has been thoroughly digested before being placed upon the Statute Book. Th" rushing through of far-ireaehing and ill-considered measures in the dying hours of a session, or in the early hours of the morning, when members are physically unfit to critically examine their contents, is a scandal which has too long blackened the reputation of our New Zealand legislature.